Heat and mass transfer law during microwave vacuum drying of rice

Abstract

In order to obtain the microwave vacuum drying characteristics of rice and the change in law of temperature and humidity, the mechanism of water diffusion and migration in the drying process was analyzed based on the multiphase flow in porous media, the change model of moisture content was established, and the microwave heating process coupled with electromagnetic field and mass heat field was simulated. The accuracy of the multiphase porous medium model was verified by measuring the moisture changes during rice drying under different vacuum degrees. The results show that the temperature distribution of rice during heating is high in the center and low around, and the vacuum degree hardly affects the change in rice temperature. The capillary pressure in rice gradually increases, and the equilibrium vapor pressure gradually decreases during drying. The estimated moisture content reduced from 0.25 to 0.189, 0.177, and 0.169, and the experimental value decreased from 0.25 to 0.186, 0.177, and 0.167 after drying the rice for 60 min at vacuum of 0.02 MPa, 0.04 MPa, and 0.06 MPa, respectively. The experimental value was in agreement with the calculated value. The higher the vacuum degree, the faster the drying speed, and this finding provided a new idea for improving the drying efficiency.